Even though researchers have found benefits to marijuana use for some ailments, Metro Vancouver’s 60 new marijuana outlets are making exaggerated, to put it politely, claims about the medicinal value of their pot, which a strong story in The Vancouver Sun shows is often obtained illegally.
The Metro Vancouver medical marijuana scene is becoming surreal — with dispensary signs suggesting pot can cure, heal or otherwise be the salvation of people struggling with everything from ... Read More …

Kevin McConnell was a man of many charms and talents. But Kevin found himself severely depressed in his 30s. Living in Metro Vancouver, he was not realizing his career dreams.
He attempted suicide in 2014. Kevin’s bewildered partner urged him to immediately see a therapist.
The therapist’s website was attractive and professional looking. So Kevin (not his real name) agreed to talk to her. The therapist asked him to “contract” to not take his own ... Read More …

People are significantly more likely to believe that a product or medication is effective when a scientific-looking graph is presented with product claims, even when the graph presents no additional information, a new study has found.
Advertisers and psychologists have long known that medical imagery such as brain scans and X-rays or scientific jargon can be used to add credibility to product pitches. Such images and technical-sounding ingredient names — such as 10 billion lactobacillus ... Read More …

Many men in North America feel pressure to succeed and provide for their families.
Many men, as well as boys, fear being seen as weak.
When they’re struggling emotionally, they often feel shame. It makes them reluctant to seek psychological help.
What’s more, when the man is of Asian origin, all those factors are magnified.
As a result there can be a strong stigma in Asian-Canadian cultures against men dealing head-on with mental health difficulties, ... Read More …

You suspect a trend has peaked when someone attaches to it the prefix, “Mc.” And it sticks. And that’s what has happened to the psycho-spiritual popularity of mindfulness, which has been a buzz word in liberal North American circles and psychology for at least a decade.
As the columns below attest, it’s not that mindfulness is a bad thing. It’s really just one technique for practising contemplation and meditation — of paying attention. And ... Read More …

I’ve finally figured out why so many Canadians are confused about racism.
My clarity emerged during a conversation about multiculturalism with Ara Norenzayan, a social psychologist at the University of B.C., who was raised in Lebanon.
We agreed key values underlying Canada’s “multicultural mosaic” are these: Avoid stereotyping, emphasize our common humanity, assume people are the same “under the skin” and act “colour blind” (or “culture blind”).
But, as Norenzayan helped me realize, these ... Read More …

Who is more rigid in their thinking — atheists or religious fundamentalists?
It’s often said that Christian, Muslim and other religious fundamentalists are very “certain” in their beliefs. Another term for this is dogmatic.
Given the ongoing debate between religious people and the new atheists, like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and others, a wise American psychologist has decided to test the levels of “certainty” of prominent leaders of both camps.
Jonathan Haidt is a ... Read More …

Readers are all over the map when it comes to trying to navigate their own anger. Many fear anger. They try to eradicate it, including in the name of “spirituality.”
I argue for trying to transform anger into something life-giving.
I received a range of provocative responses to my Saturday column headlined “Master anger and change the world.”
As readers will see below, there is disagreement over the proposal that a certain quality of anger ... Read More …

We are confused by anger.
We frequently feel it; whether it’s slight irritation at a frozen computer screen or blind rage at an untrustworthy boss. And we are often told such feelings are bad for both ourselves and our loved ones.
In our therapeutic North American culture, many try to erase anger by going for a walk, detaching from it through slow “breathing” or calming it through prayer or meditation.
But what do we do ... Read More …

Politicians and pitchmen take note: Listeners who lock eyes with a person expressing views that conflict with their own are not only less likely to change their attitude, they will avoid further contact with the speaker, according to new research by a professor at the University of British Columbia.
Frances Chen has turned previous research about the persuasive power of eye contact on its head with a study using new eye-tracking technology to follow the ... Read More …

How front-line service workers manage rude and abusive customers could make or break a business, according to studies by researchers at the Sauder School of Business at the University of B.C.
Customers are more than willing to punish other shoppers who ignore the rules of good conduct by leaving displays askew or breaking into a lineup, said recent PhD graduate Lily Lin. They are also willing to punish businesses if employees don’t intervene when shoppers ... Read More …

Regularly, I am asked, how does someone become an animal behaviourist?
Well, I was lucky, and in the right place at the right time. Over twenty years ago, the University of Edinburgh vet school and the Scottish Agricultural College set up the world’s first post-graduate program in applied animal behaviour and animal welfare.
I was a new graduate and late applying, but a lifelong passion for animals, plus years of paying my dues as the ... Read More …

James Loney doesn’t think he’s courageous.
Yet the Canadian purposefully placed himself in harm’s way for the sake of a less-violent world.
In opposing what he considered an unjust war, Loney and three others wound up being kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents and held for four months.
Loney was terrified. During long nights when he was tied up, he strove to avoid fixating on death or other grim fates that could befall him and fellow volunteers ... Read More …

This piece on the Enneagram relates to my review of the autobiography of Victoria Bishop Remi De Roo, who has co-authored a book on the Enneagram with Pearl Gervais, quoted below. Their book connects Bible characters to the nine Enneagram personality types. The Jesuits were instrumental in bringing the Enneagram to North America.
Vancouver Sun ARCHIVES
Saturday, Oct 8 1994
Byline: DOUGLAS TODD
Some warned against this potentially gimmicky approach to the Enneagram.
But ... Read More …

First in a series on Finding Happiness in Difficult Times
Lorna Clutterham was thrown off kilter when her long-awaited first baby was born. Why was the Ladner mom feeling so bad?
For some reason, the birth of Lorna’s son was bringing back wrenching memories of her strict Mennonite childhood in Manitoba.
Her mother had died young, as had two sisters. Lorna had been physically abused by her father, and sexually abused by her grandfather.
By ... Read More …

“If you want intimacy, don’t marry a man.”
That is how a prominent Ottawa psychologist – and couples therapist – was quoted in a story that ran in Monday’s Vancouver Sun. The article was headlined, “How not to marry a jerk.”
The quote from psychologist Martin Rovers — “If you want intimacy, don’t marry a man” — was the last line of the article. I think it was meant to elicit laughs.
But it ... Read More …

Columbia University has become the first Ivy League school in this modern era to venture into psychology and spirituality. It’s clinical psychology program is experimenting with integrating psychotherapy and spirituality in ways seldom seen at a major research university. It may be part of a trend.
It appears a few more secular universities, which have been almost phobic in their resistance to religion and spirituality in the past 50 years, are getting ready to take ... Read More …

It can be rewarding to take risks. It can also be dangerous.
One Canadian woman dreamed of climbing Mount Everest. She did so in mid-May, and died.
A Vancouver man took on the legendary climbing challenge the same weekend. And it transformed him.
The wife of a B.C. man worried he was taking “a big risk” by scrambling across this month’s giant mudslide at Johnsons Landing to look for survivors. Yet, despite the pre-carious, shifting ... Read More …

A financial disaster at a large evangelical church is raising questions about “affinity fraud,” a term that covers the way people proclaiming to be Christians, for instance, sometimes take financial advantage of gullible Christians with whom they have a group “affinity.”
The latest controversy came to my attention after CBC reporters called about an Edmonton congregation, called Victory Christian Center, which is being forced into foreclosure to sell its property because its leadership became embroiled ... Read More …